Sharing your screen with scammers can cost you instantly, watchdog warns

SCREEN-SHARING scam cases have surged, with one victim losing more than £48,000, the City regulator has warned.

Sharing your screen without making the proper checks can “change everything in an instant”, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said.

Such scams enable fraudsters to embed themselves in victims’ digital devices in order to access online banking and investment details.

Criminals are taking advantage of a growing familiarity with requests for screen sharing, the FCA warned, as the coronavirus pandemic has increased people’s reliance on video conferencing and remote platforms to work and socialise.

More than £25 million was lost to such scams between January 1, 2021 and March 31, 2022, with the age of victims ranging from 18 to over 70, the watchdog confirmed.

About a quarter (26 per cent) of 18 to 34-year-olds would agree to screensharing their online banking or investment portal with someone they had not met, research for the FCA found.

The number of screen-sharing scam cases has jumped by 86% when comparing July to December 2020 with the same period in 2021, it added.

In one case seen by the FCA, a 59-year-old woman lost £48,000 as scammers used screen-sharing software to take over her computer and access her banking history.

She was persuaded to download remote desktop software to secure an investment – and lost more than £48,000 while scammers accessed her banking details, her pension and applied for loans on her behalf.

She clicked on an advert for bitcoin and received a call from people claiming to be financial advisers.

Offering to complete the first investment for her, they asked her to download remote technology, which gave the scammers open access to all the financial details on her computer.

Her case is among thousands the FCA has received to its consumer helpline.